Extension drive for breaker-lapper



Nov. 27', 1934.

A. J. BLACKWOOD ET AL EXTENSION DRIVE FOR BREAKERLAPPER I 2 Sheets-Sheetl INVENTORS Filed Nov. 24, 1930 ATTORNEY Nov. 27, 1934. BLACKWOOD ET AL1,982,414

EXTENSION DRIVE FOR BREAKER-LAPPER Filed Nov. 24, 1930 2 Sheets-Sheet 2INVENTORS w BY ATTORNEY Nmw Patented Nov. 27, 1934 UNITED STATESEXTENSION DRIVE FOR BREAKER-LAPPER Arthur J. Blackwood, Cooleemee, andCarl R. Harris, Durham, N. 0.

Application November 24, 1930, Serial No. 497,914

1 Claim.

This invention relates to improvements in cotton picking machinery andit consists of the constructions, combinations and arrangements hereindescribed and claimed.

An object of the invention is to provide a machine for producing laps ofapproximately uniform weight so that the finished laps will weigh .sonearly the same that there will be no perceptible difference.

'Another object of the invention is to avoid a tandem connection ofeveners, but to make the connection in series so that a succession ofbreaker-lappers may be put under such progressive and cumulative controlthat a lap of substantial uniform weight will always be produced.

A further object of the invention is to provide a lapper system which isflexible in the sense that a progressive control of succeeding breakersoccurs from front to back of the system but not from back to front, thisproducing a very even or uniform finished lap and practically preventingthe breaking of the lap as would be the case if an increase of speedwere communicated to all of the eveners at once.

A still further object of the invention is to provide a lapper forone-process picking comprising a plurality of serially connected evenersand as many breakers with but one hopper for the purpose of establishingthe mutual control of the eveners and the production of laps which areuniform as to weight per unit length;

Other objects and advantages will appear in the followingspecification,'reference being had to the accompanying drawings in whichFigure 1 is a, side elevation'of the improved one-process lapper,particularly illustrating the cone extension drives by means of whichprogressive control of the breakers is effected from front to back (leftto right) of the machine.

Figures 2 and 3 are similar views of the lapper drawn on a somewhatlarger scale and intended to be connected on the lines 1-2, l2.

Figure 4 is a detail horizontal section of the evener of one of thebreakers.

Figure 5 is a cross section taken on the line 5--5 of Figure 4illustrating a known evener construction. g

As already indicated in the foregoing brief statements of the invention,the object is to pro- 50 vide a lapper for producing cotton laps sonearly equal in weight per unit length that there will be no perceptibledifference in weight in a run of such laps. A breaker-lapper, as themachine is familiarly known, is a contrivance for reduc- 55 ing largemasses of cotton to tufts and so assembling or combining these as toproduce a bat or lap of substantially uniform thickness and width.

There is a number of known arrangements for producing laps but theprevailing difliculty is the uncertainty of producing laps of evenweight per unit length. The practice is to cut off the lap in fifty yardor any other desired lengths. Sometimes these laps will weigh fiftypounds, that is to say one pound per yard, and sometimes they will weighperhaps fifty-three, fifty-six, etc. pounds.

The use of what is known as an evener has been contemplated inconnection with lappers, but even these have not effected a relief fromthe production of non-uniform laps. This nonuniformity in a run of lapsis highly undesirable because of certain trade and manufacturingrequirements.

The remedy herein contemplated is to provide a one-process lapper 1consisting of a hopper 2, primary breaker-lapper 3, intermediatebreakerlapper 4 and finishing breaker-lapper 5 in which the respectiveeveners 6, '7 and 8 are serially connected so that there may be aprogressive controlling effect from front to back (left to right) of thelapper 1. The hopper 2 is regarded as the back of the lapper, while thefinishing breaker 5 is regarded as the front because it is here wherethe finished lap appears.

It is the serial connection of the eveners 6, 7 and 8 that constitutesthe invention. A main drive shaft 9 has a beltor other connection 10 onthe far side of the lapper with a spiral gear train 11 on the near sidethat terminates at and drives a lay shaft which consists of sections 12,13 and 14. The respective shaft sections carry cone pulleys 15, 16 and17 which function both as drive and driven pulleys for the successiveeveners.

To the latter end, the pulleys 15, 16 and 17 are beltedat 18, 19 and20to corresponding cone pulleys 21, 22 and 23. The function of therespective eveners 8, '7 and 6 is to shift the belts either to the leftor right thus to increase or diminishthe speed of the respective feedapron 24 (Fig. 4) and feed rolls 32 and 33 with which each breaker isequipped. If the speed increases, there will be a quickening of thefeeding of cotton so as to increase the thickness of the lap, or ifthere be a decrease in speed, there will be a slowing of the feeding ofcotton with a consequent reduction in the thickness of the lap;

Although each evener comprises a known construction a brief descriptionthereof is necessarily given:--The apron 24 (confining the presentdescription to the breaker 3) is trained over rollers 25, 26 (Fig. 4),the first of which is driven by gearing 27 from the shaft 28 of the conepulley 23. A shaft similar to 28 is extended from the ends of each ofthe pulleys 21 and 22.

The apron 24 feeds its charge of cotton 29 (Fig. 4) received from thehopper 2 by way of an elevator 36 and knock-off roller 31, to a pair offeed rolls 32, 33 which in turn deliver the cotton as at 34 (Fig. 4) tothe space between an evener pedal 35 and evener roll 36. Gearing 26drives the feed rolls 33 from one end of the respective shaft 28. A geartrain T (Fig. 4) drives the respective roller 26 and roll 32. The leftfringe of the cotton 34 is presented to the beater 37 which knocks offtufts and ultimately delivers them to a pair of cylindrical screens 38where they collect in layers and whence they are removed for conveyancethrough the next breaker 4.

A plurality of similar grid sections 39 (Fig. 5) constitutes the evenerpedal 35. These sections are independently pivoted on a common shaft 46so that any one or set of the sections may yield to a thick placepassing under the evener roll 36 and cause a shifting of the belt 26 tothe right (Fig. 1) for a diminution of the speed of the apron 24 for areduction in the feed of cotton.

Each of these sections 39 has an arm41 (Fig. 4) All of the arms arejoined at the free ends by a mesh work of links 42 which finally tapersdown to a point of connection 43 (Fig. 5) with a weighted lever 44 whichhas a link connection 45 with one arm of a bell crank 46. The other armof this bell crank has connection with a shifter rod 47 which carriesforks 48 in such connection with the belt 20'that shifting of the rod 47will shift the belt in the manner already explained. Any other knowntype of evener may be similarly used.

It is repeated that the principal evener structure is that of a knowntype, and it is mainly the combination of this structure with theextension shafts of the top cone pulleys as well as the coupling orconnection of these pulleys serially with the bottom cone pulleys thatcomprises the invention. There is necessarily a slight difference in theextension shaft 28 of the evener 6 from the extension shafts 49, 50 ofthe eveners 7, 8-.- The latter respectively carry pulleys 51, 52 thatare belted or chained at 53, 54 to pulleys 55, 56 on the lay shaftsections 14, 13. These sections res ectively carry the bottom conepulleys 17, 16 as already stated. The extension shaft 28 is minus theequivalent of a pulley or sprocket 51 or 52 because the evener 6 is theterminal or back evener, having nothing behind it but the hopper 2.

The respective extension shafts 49, 50 also have gearing 57, 58 by whichthe drive rollers 59, 60 of the aprons 24 of the respectiveeveners 7, 8are driven. Each of these eveners has duplicate evener pedals 35 andassociated structure terminating in shifter rods 61, 62.

The operation is readily understood. The loose cotton is loaded into thehopper 2 from which it is discharged by the elevator 36 onto the firstfeed apron 24 as indicated at 29 in Figure 4. The knock-01f roller 31causes the cotton to drop down onto the feed'apron. v

The purpose of the feedrolls 32, 33 is to deliver the cotton 29 (Fig. 4)to. the beater 37, and as already pointed out this beater converts thecotton'fringe appearing between the pedal 35 and roll 36 to tufts whichare drawn by suction against the first cylindrical screens 38 (Fig. 3)where they build up in a layer and whence they are removed for passagethrough the breaker, 4. The process is repeated in the breaker 4, andwhen the layers are finally removed from the cylindrical screens of thefinisher breaker 5 it is henceforth known as the lap which comes out acertain thickness and width. The fundamental purpose of the invention isto insure a uniformity of weight of cotton lap per unit length.

Say for example, that there should be a thick place in the cotton 34(Fig. 4) going between the evener pedal 35 and roll 36 of the firstbreaker 3. The resulting rocking of the pedal 35 and arms 41 in thedirection of arrows 63, 64 (Fig. 4) will lift the lever 44 (Fig. 5)swing the bell crank 46 and shift the rod 47 to the right so that thebelt is shifted to the right and the speed of the feed apron 24 and feedrolls diminished. The evener 6 thus slows down and reduces the feed ofcotton to allow the thick place to pass on.

Should there be a thin place in the cotton passing between the evenerpedal and roll 35, 36 the action wouldbe reversed. The belt 26 would beshifted toward the left and the speed of the cone 23, consequently ofthe feed apron 24 and feed rolls (Fig. 4), increased thereby deliveringmore cotton 29.

In case either the thick or thin place in the cotton has not totallydisappeared by the time it reaches the intermediate breaker 4, theeffect would be to either reduce or increase the speed of the conepulleys 22, 23. Should either the thick or thin place still be evidentby the time it reaches the finishing breaker 5, then the cone pulleys21, 22 and 23 would either be reduced in speed or speeded up either todiminish the feed of cotton or increase it as the case may be.

. From this it will be understood that the controlling effect works fromleft to right of the lapper 1. In other words, the breaker 5 can controlbreakers4 and 3, or breaker 4 can control breaker 3. But breaker 4cannot control breaker 15 5 nor can breaker 3 control breaker 4. Thiscomes about because of the serial connection of the lay shaft sections12, 13, 14 with the bottom and top cone pulleys of the successiveeveners 8, 7, 6.

The driving effort is applied by the gear train 11. The speed of the layshaft section 12 is thus uniform as is also that of the bottom pulley15. However, a thick or thin place in the cotton still evident whenreaching evener 8 will cause the shifting of the belt 18 either to theright or left thus either decreasing or increasing the speed of thesections 13, 14 in comparison with the section 12. Thus the section 12may be running at normal-speed while the sections 13, 14 may be runningeither at sub-normal or abnormal speeds. It is thus easy to see that ifthe need for'more cotton, to compensate for a thin place for example,prevails until the cotton reaches the evener 8 (Fig. 1) that need mustbe evident throughout the remainder of the system, hence' the evener 6,although the evener 6 is capable of r speeding up to correct a localthin place in the cotton 34 (Fig. 4) without affecting the evener 7 orthe evener 8.

The serial connection of the lay shaft sections 12, 13, with thesuccessive bottom and top cone pulleys of the respective eveners is tobe distin-' guishedfrom similar arrangements where eveners are connecteddirectly and in tandem with a single lay shaft. The result of the serialconnection is the individual as well as cumulative conv fin trol of theeveners 6, 7, 8, in other words, a sympathetic adaptation of theapparatus to the actual conditions of the cotton passing through,whereas the result of a single shaft would be an inflexible andsimultaneous controlling effect on all of the eveners without regard asto whether one breaker requires more cotton than another or vice versa.

Another advantage in the flexible and variable drive of the cottonlapper 1 resides in the speeding up of the breakers 4, 3 when thefinishing breaker 5 speeds up for more cotton to compensate for a thinplace. As already brought out the demand is communicated to each of thebreakers 4, 3 so that the lap is prevented from being torn apart orbroken in the breaker 5. Should a thin place occur here and the demandfor more cotton not answered by the other breakers, the lapwould bethinned out so much that it would break.

Heretofore it has been necessary in all oneprocess picking to confinethe control to a single evener, and in those instances where the use oftwo eveners Was undertaken it became necessary to run each evenerseparately and to supply an extra hopper between the two eveners. Thisarrangement has made it diificult to produce an even lap so that widevariations in weight per unit length are quite usual. The instantimprovement has operated successfully with three eveners in the samehopper, cutting out the extra hopper and confining the feed of cotton tothe single hopper 2. The result has been a perfectly even or uniformlap.

While the construction and arrangement of the improved extension driveis that of a generally preferred form, obviously modifications andchanges may be made without departing from the spirit of the inventionor the scope of the claim.

We claim:-

That improvement in methods of picking cotton which consists inperforming a plurality of picking operations on a stream of loose cottonand finally working it into the form of a finished lap, feeding thecotton in a continuous and approximately uniform stream from each or"said operations to the next, evening the cotton at two points spacedapart longitudinally of said stream, and causing the final eveningoperation to exercise control over the speed of the earlier of saidevening operations while permitting the two evening operations toproceed independently in other respects.

ARTHUR J. BLACKIWOOD. CARL R. HARRIS.

